In real estate it “ain’t over until the fat lady sings.” Counting our eggs (real estate commissions) before they are hatched (COE) is not a sustainable attitude.
Sometimes we subconsiously know the end result before we actually walk the path. Inside we are hoping the buyer won’t let us down again. However, our intuitive sense is telling us otherwise.
This past month clients cancelled a sales contract. They had cancelled a previous sales contract last year. This time instead of buying a home, they were buying vacant land.
When they made an offer on the vacant land, my “spidey sense” told me this sales transaction would not make it to Close of Escrow (COE). Then 15 days after accepting a counter by the seller, they were inquiring on a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) manufactured home. I provided them with the information. Three days later I received a text saying they were cancelling the contract. The text said it wasn’t because of the FSBO, but they were taking a different path. This statement was exactly the first reason for cancelling the contract last year.
In this instance, the wife was handling all the paperwork and negotiations. She was demanding and reluctant to do what the sales contract asked such as sending in proof of funds. After nearly 2 weeks of requesting proof of funds, the wife finally came through. From my sales experience, her behavior was some may call as passive, aggressive.
Given these buyers have let me down twice and have consumed over 40 hours of my time between the two cancelled contracts, I have promised myself I will not take them back as clients.
How many times do we have that sense of “don’t let me down again?” We may believe or want to believe we have fully qualified buyers or sellers. Yet, as close of escrow countdown marches on, we sense something is not right.
Being disappointed in sales is a fact, an emotion we as sales professionals have. Our goal is to keep those disappointments to a minimum. Sometimes this may mean we may have to fire a potential seller or buyer to even making referrals to other Realtors.
Yes, we want to protect and promote our real estate clients. Yes, we want to be ethical in all real estate transactions. Yes, we will anxiously wait during the countdown to COE doing everything we need to do to make a real estate transaction successful because we do not want disappointment for our sellers, our buyers, our brokers, our partners such as title and the agent on the other side and ourselves.
Graphic Courtesy of Gratisography.com
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